I felt a little worried last week when Valerio said that during the next lesson he was going to bring his Gospel so that we could "discuss" a few things... I was certain Valerio's definition of The Gospel was the first four books of the New Testament and by discuss,he wanted to do some Bible bashing. Fortunately, when we had our next lesson, I discovered that I was way off base! He ended up bringing The Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet that we had given him a couple months ago and wanted to read a few things out of there with us. THEN, at the end of this lesson a hilarious thing happened when Valerio was saying the closing prayer.
First, I need to give you guys some background information: you can pretty much guarantee that when you have a lesson with Valerio, he'll tell you about some weird experience about how he was really hot at some point during the week and then asked the Lord for wind- and then how the Lord sent him a big gust of wind to dry his sweat! It became kind of an inside joke with Anziano Buckles on hot days. "Man, I wish Valerio was here to call down a gust of wind from the heavens; it's hot!" ANYWAY, back to Valerio's prayer, as he was closing his prayer, he asked Heavenly Father to please help him know whether the church was true. I kid you not, as soon as he said those words, A BIG FLIPPING GUST OF WIND COMES AND SMACKS US. It was incredible. I'm not sure if it was as spiritual for Valerio as it was awesome, but as soon as it happened, I started laughing HYSTERICALLY. It was definitely one of those mission experiences that I'm never going to forget.
First, I need to give you guys some background information: you can pretty much guarantee that when you have a lesson with Valerio, he'll tell you about some weird experience about how he was really hot at some point during the week and then asked the Lord for wind- and then how the Lord sent him a big gust of wind to dry his sweat! It became kind of an inside joke with Anziano Buckles on hot days. "Man, I wish Valerio was here to call down a gust of wind from the heavens; it's hot!" ANYWAY, back to Valerio's prayer, as he was closing his prayer, he asked Heavenly Father to please help him know whether the church was true. I kid you not, as soon as he said those words, A BIG FLIPPING GUST OF WIND COMES AND SMACKS US. It was incredible. I'm not sure if it was as spiritual for Valerio as it was awesome, but as soon as it happened, I started laughing HYSTERICALLY. It was definitely one of those mission experiences that I'm never going to forget.
Awesome door-to-door story to share with you guys: It was POURING down rain earlier this week and Anziano Freckleton didn't have any appointments planned, so we hit the streets. We decided to do door-to-door tracting instead of street contacting in hopes of getting let in by some nice Italian to drink hot chocolate and eat brioches. Unfortunately, we didn't end up drinking any warm chocolatey fluids or eating any sugary pastries, but we did get let in by this young Italian lady named Lisa! We shared a little of the plan of salvation with her and told her we had to go (her husband wasn't home at the time), however she seemed really interested and invited us back tomorrow!
I also want to follow up with you guys about Niccolo. I told you about Niccolo during the Mother's Day Skype call (a young man in his 20's that let us in while we were doing door-to-door tracting) and I finally have some news to share about him. ;) We had been calling him like three or four times a week since our first encounter, but he was either busy or didn't pick up whenever we called him. Miraculously, last week he finally agreed to see us and we shared the restoration lesson with him on Sunday!! He grew up Catholic, but now considers
himself to be atheist. However, he is really open and asked a lot of really thought-provoking questions that tested my Italian! ;p He definitely felt something when we recounted the Joseph Smith story...I'm not sure if it was anything grandeur, but it was definitely something... We gave him a Book of Mormon and he told us that he wants to invite his friend to our next lesson!
I can't explain to you how cool it is seeing little pockets of success with Italians in this highly atheistic city. The Lord is definitely helping us in our efforts in finding his children that are ready to hear his message. I've been going to bed feeling really satisfied lately, a really good feeling. Have an exciting week, family! Send my brother some Noah love at the wedding this weekend. ;)
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| Beautiful Livorno |
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